Sometimes the numbers tell the whole story

August 19, 2009

LEWISTOWN - Numbers and baseball go together like summer days and baseball parks.

The conclusion of the Mifflin County Babe Ruth All-Star season shows that the numbers were pretty good.

The league had a 28-10 record and the 38 games were the most played in league history. The 28 wins were just two short of the league record set in 2007 when the league went 30-7.

The class of 2009 set a new league record with wins. In three years of competition, the class went 33-5. The old record in wins was held by the class of 2004 with 29 victories. Finishing second in the Mid-Atlantic Regionals, the 15-year-olds tied with three other teams for third best finish ever in the history of the league.

On an individual basis, the class of 2009 put its mark into the record books. Seven players made the top ten in games played, Brendon Fultz, Tanner Kibe, Levi North, Josh Rosefsky, Cole Welham, Mitch Welham and Ted Wilson. The seven played 37 games. The all-time record is held by Thomas Walters, who played in 43 games.

Mitch Welham made three other top tens in hits, official at bats and runs. Welham finished with 45 hits, second only to Chris Tressler, who had 51. He also had 118 official at bats, second to Tressler, who had 127. Welham and Jeremy Koller each scored 32 runs to tie with two other players for 10th place. Tressler and Casey Zimmerman each scored 44 runs tops in that category.

Tyson Searer made the top ten in wins, pitching appearances, innings pitched and strikeouts.

Searer finished with a 9-1 record, tying him for second with four other players in victories. The all-time leader is Cody Heane, who had a 13-0 mark.

Searer tied for 10th in appearances with 14. Tressler tops that chart with 19 trips to the mound. Searer pitched in 58 innings, which was good enough for ninth place. Nate Saltzer is the all-time leader with 78.3 innings.

The 15-year-old team won 14 straight games - setting a new league record. The 15-year-olds also left their mark in runs scored, hitting and fielding.

In 15 games, the 15-year-olds scored 136 runs, second all-time to the 1983 13-year-old team that scored 156 runs.

The team produced 142 hits, second to the 2002 15-year-olds, which had 150 hits. In official at bats, the 15-year-olds had 432, which ranks third. The 2002 15-year-olds had the most official at bats at 545.

As a team, the 15-year-olds batted .329, which was good enough for seventh place when teams got at least 200 or more official at bats in an All-Star season. The 2002 14-year-old team has the top average with a .378 mark.

In fielding the 15-year-olds had 441 chances, third best all-time and fielded at .955 clip which is tops all time. Mifflin County only committed 20 errors in 15 games and after the first game in the District 7 competition only committed 16 errors. The old record was held by the 2002 15-year-old team with a .953 mark.

The 13-year-old All-Star team also made the top ten in total chances with 428 (tied for sixth); hits, 113 (tied for eighth) and official at bats, 393 (sixth).

Two 13-year-old players were in the right place at the right time. Kyle Bodtorf picked up the league's 6,000 hit and Aaron Michaels got the league's 21,000 official at bat.

The 15-year-olds were the first team since 1968 (since double elimination play was put into Babe Ruth baseball) to finish with just one loss (14-1).

On the other hand, the 13-year-olds were the first team to have six losses in a season (8-6).

The 28-10 record was the most losses by the league. The old record was nine in 2004 when the league had a 27-9 mark.

On the coaching front, the 15-year-old manager, Butch Bender now has an overall All-Star mark of 17-3 and moved into eighth place in wins. He finished his 12th year with a 163-159 record and is now in the top ten (eighth place). Bender was just the sixth Mifflin County manager to get a team to the Mid-Atlantic Regional final four.

The 14-year-old manager, Bernie Howard, now has a 57-17 record in All-Star competition (fifth place) and has an overall record of 265-79 (tied for sixth place on the all-time Mifflin County list). Howard's 2009 record was 36-2 and was second only to Scott Reigle's mark of 37-10 in 2002.

Reigle, the 13-year-old manager, now has a 60-24 All-Star mark. He is fourth in all-time wins in All-Star play and has a 287-118 overall mark and is fifth in total wins in the Mifflin County league. He has now manged or coached in 1093 games and has appeared in more All-Star games than anyone else as a player, coach or manager at 195.

Mifflin County now has a 548-236 record after 55 years of play. It has won 69 district titles and has 62 finishes in the Pennsylvania final four. Mifflin County has put together 42 consecutive All-Star seasons without a losing season dating back to 1967.

Mifflin County has appeared in 37 Pennsylvania state finals and has won 19 state titles and has 18 state runners-up. It has now appeared in 22 Mid-Atlantic Regionals and has made the regional final four nine times. Mifflin County has advanced to six Mid-Atlantic finals and has won two - going to the World Series twice and finishing in the top ten each time.